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Anyway, there's a threadbare story among all those "Double Platinum" songs. Not one that anybody should brag about, but a story.

Ross plays Olivia King, a part- time club singer in Atlanta who, in 1981, leaves her husband (Brian Stokes Mitchell) and infant daughter Kayla to take her last best shot at stardom in New York.

Eighteen years later, she's Olivia King, megastar, and heartsick about that abandoned daughter. She tracks the girl to St. Louis, where Kayla (Brandy) lives with her father and is herself an aspiring singer.

Olivia arranges to meet Kayla, tells her the truth, and after much harrumphing, Kayla moves to New York to become Olivia's protege.

Mostly what happens in "Double Platinum" is that the resentful Kayla pitches a fit at Olivia every 10 minutes, then one of them sings, and Harvey Fierstein appears warm and gooey as Olivia's adoring manager.

Whatever God intended for Fierstein, it wasn't to clap his hands and let his eyes glaze over in someone else's sappy star vehicle.

Shamelessly cloying and cliche-riddled, "Double Platinum" nevertheless has all those songs and plenty of star whammy.

Neither of the stars brings much to her role in the way of dead-on emotional truth. But Ross has one honest moment, a breathtaking scene when she breaks through the logjam to connect with her daughter.

Speaking of breathtaking scenes, NBC's "Atomic Train" (9 p.m. Sunday and Monday on Channel 4) is practically a two-hour asthma attack on Sunday, and then a mess on Monday.

Rob Lowe stars as a federal safety inspector whose quality time with his stepson is interrupted by a runaway train en route from Utah to Denver. Not only is the freight train carrying nuclear wastes and mystery chemicals, but also a villainous waste disposal executive has slipped a decommissioned Russian missile aboard, too.

If the train slams into Denver, kaboom -- adios, arrivederci, the celestial pink slip. We're told, twice, that Denver may be "decimated." Even "completely deci mated." A gift of one dictionary for each screenwriter.

Sunday's installment is in the spirit, and certainly mimics the pacing, of big-time Hollywood thrill rides. There's a leak, a fire, brake failure, and the miniseries is off like a locomotive.

Lowe is jumping on and off the train heroically, the president of the United States (Edward Herrmann) is fretting manfully, and guy viewers have every expectation of a whopping explosion.

In fact, the opening night is about five seconds short of standing on its own without the "To Be Continued" message. It's the Monday segment that turns the miniseries into a train wreck in every respect.

"Atomic Train" turns dark, brutal, cynical and, worse, slow. Also silly. There's barely a commercial break without some cast member in mortal jeopardy; after a while you might find yourself rolling your eyes. All that death and mayhem, and so little to care about.